To create a blog about how video games establish personal and cultural expression
How did I choose my goal and why is it challenging?
When I first landed my hands on both these games, I never noticed how many parts and aspects of each game are inspired from real life cultural events. The open world in Breath of the Wild so easily fascinated me to explore and learn more about this vast land while the simple outgoing life I found in Animal Crossing just allowed me to love the game so wholeheartedly.
However, my interest sparked and I began to question certain design elements within the games. The more I looked, the more I discovered about how cultures are integrated into the game. This website will discuss and deeply analyze aesthetics, characters and setting all related to cultures and how this all has an overall effect on the player's perception of such cultures. I want to showcase the effort and detail the developers put in both these games for creating a riveting experience.
Culture in videogames is so subtly and seamlessly embedded in making it often hard to find links to the real world within videogames. Cultures are vast and expansive and game developers can use any aspect of it within the game. When looking into a specific aspect within the game, to trace it back to its source of inspiration is a daunting task requiring a great deal of research to be put in, thus identifying these cultural references required looking at what is more than on the exterior of the game making it more challenging.
Global Context
Personal and Cultural expression
Why did I choose Personal and Cultural expression as my Global Context?
The global context I have chosen to link to my personal project is Personal and cultural expression. This global context means that “students will explore the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic” (Langford Middle School). I chose this strand of global context because my goal is to create a website which provides examples of cultures being used as inspiration when creating games. Through research, I found out how the game developers express their ideas and beliefs in the games. How they integrate culture into the narrative and how it can breathe life and personality into the game’s plot and characters. I understood how conveying this culture in a certain way affects our perception of it. I learnt how with providing us with customization of our character, we are provided methods to express our own culture. Due to various vast and rich cultures, creativity and freedom is encouraged to game creators. This inclusion is what I acknowledged and appreciated through my personal project.